Necessary Discussions
by DeniseV
Summary: The Jericho team stop on their hike back home for a painful discussion. It's only one of many that need to be had. Missing scene for the episode One If By Land.


The three Green men continued the long, slow walk home, Robert Hawkins leading their small contingent to Jericho and away from New Bern, each man alone with their thoughts. It was doubtful that they weren't all thinking about the same thing, but no one in the group had ventured into a discussion about that tricky territory. It would need to be discussed; it was unlikely that any of them would be getting any good sleep anytime soon save for Eric, who was as near to passing out as a walking man could be. No, discussions would soon be had about the ramifications of recent events in New Bern and how Jericho would be able to defend against the coming attack.

"Haven't seen you around all that much lately, Hawkins," Johnston Green said out of the blue as he stopped walking to take a much needed rest. The oldest of their group, Johnston was not likely to make it the entire way carrying Maggie across his shoulders. They would need to find some other way to get the fake Marine back to the protection of Jericho. She had earned that right considering her sacrifice in their escape from Constantino's clutches. They didn't really have the time to make a travois, but carrying her some other way would be complicated and tiring.

"Do you need a hand, Dad?" Jake asked. Johnston looked at his oldest son. It was pretty clear that Eric had taken a beating at the hands of those bastards in New Bern, but the senior Green was having a harder time reading Jake. Wasn't that always the case? To be sure, if there was something that Jake didn't want him to know, Johnston was sure that his oldest son had the wherewithal to keep him from knowing it. Something had gone on during those five years away from his family and his hometown; when Jake chose to disclose where he'd been and what he'd done, beyond an admission borne of pain and fear and hallucinations from a near-fatal night not so long ago, was completely up to Jake Green. Johnston hoped they would be able to get to that point, finally get to sit down and talk, to have that most difficult of discussions - father and son - soon. He knew that it couldn't be soon enough, especially with a mini-war their next most pressing challenge to deal with.

"Yeah," Johnston said as he put one knee down in the grass on the side of the road. Jake lifted her off of his father's shoulders and laid her on the ground. The father watched carefully to assure himself that at least one of his sons had come out of New Bern's jail uninjured.

"I can walk," Maggie insisted.

"No you can't," Johnston and Jake said in unison. Johnston continued. "You'll start to bleed again, and you've lost enough blood as it is."

"We need to keep moving," Hawkins said, the last of their group to remain on the road. Everyone else was now positioned to the side and below where the former Saint Louis cop stood; it was as though Robert Hawkins had no intention of joining them in their safer position off of the road.

"We need to put together something to carry her," Eric said.

"We don't have time for that," Hawkins explained. "We need to get back to Jericho. Now."

"We all know that. What do you suggest?" Jake asked irritably. "Do you want us to leave her here?" Robert looked Jake in the eye, squarely in the eye, but said nothing. "No. We're not doing that," Jake replied adamantly.

"Hold on there a second, son," Johnston interrupted.

"What? We're not leaving her here, Dad."

"Jake," Eric started.

"No!" Jake paced a little as everyone watched him. "If we work fast and stop wasting time talking about something we're not going to do, we could have the travois done and be on our way."

"Jake, we don't have an hour to waste, and you know that is how long it will take, at best," Hawkins tried to explain logically.

Jake looked from Hawkins to his father and then to his ailing brother. How could they think this was the right call? They were miles away still. Leaving Maggie out here was wrong. How could they think…

"Jake, you can come back for me," Maggie suggested. "I'll stay quiet, you can get some branches to cover me like you did the truck."

"No."

"Jake," Johnston Green said firmly. "We need to move. What do you suggest?"

"I'll carry her."

"Jake, you can't," Maggie said.

"Why not?"

"You won't get very far," Hawkins said.

Jake looked regretfully at Maggie. His big, brown eyes showed his desperation. He would not leave her out here.

Robert walked up close to Jake. "I know how you feel, but…"

"No you don't. You have NO idea how I feel." Jake leaned in very close to Hawkins, close enough for only the two to hear one another. "I will not jeopardize her life. That is not going to happen."

"We can do things to assure her safety out here. She would only be out here for a couple of hours. We'll send someone back for her." Robert watched Jake's face; he watched as the torture of even thinking about making such a choice flashed over the young man's expressive face.

"I can't do it. I…I left someone. Before. It was a mistake." Jake raised his eyes to look into those of his comrade in arms. Jake could see the understanding in Hawkins eyes. He'd been there before. Hawkins had been there before. He knew exactly what Jake was saying, without the Green sibling needing to verbalize it.

Hawkins took a step back and looked down at Maggie. And then he looked back over to Jake. "What do you want to do?" Hawkins may have been in charge in their mission to find Jake's brother, but he deferred to Jake Green now to make the choice. He knew it was a shitty choice to be saddled with, because there was no way that they would make progress trying to carry Maggie all of the way to Jericho.

"Let Maggie and me stay here," Eric suggested. "We'll be fine for a few hours."

"No. We just sprung you," Jake insisted.

"We don't have time to debate this. We have to decide. Now." His brother's firm 'now', echoing the one from Hawkins just moments before, tore at Jake's soul. Jake looked at Eric and then over to his dad. He needed help making this decision. Despite all that he had done for his family and his townspeople since the bombs, he now found himself unable to make the call. He knew how he wanted to answer, but deciding that wasn't the right way to go. He knew that. He locked eyes with Johnston Green. For this decision, he needed his father's guidance. It was one of the few times in the last five plus years that he'd actually been able to seek it when he needed it.

He could have used his father's wisdom a lot in the five years he'd been gone.

"Jake, help me move Maggie down further. Hawkins, you and Eric, gather as many branches, live and dead, as you can." Johnston turned to speak to his oldest son. "Everything will be fine, son. It's the right call."

"It sucks."

"I know it does, but we need to high tail it back. We've got things to do."

"I know," Jake agreed. He added quietly so that only his father could hear, "We screwed up, Dad. With New Bern. We should have tried to warn them."

"We were dealing with a lot at the time, Jake. We have the survival of an entire town to worry about. It cannot be our responsibility to worry about everybody in Kansas; we're barely holding on as it is." Johnston could see that he wasn't necessarily convincing his son with his argument. "We'll talk about it later. Let's take care of Maggie and Eric and then move on home."

"Okay."

Jake turned to head toward where they had previously put Maggie down on the ground. Johnston reached for Jake's arm to stall his forward movement.

"We need to talk about Hawkins, don't we?" Johnston asked.

Jake looked at his father and said, "We do. But remember what he did to help get Eric back."

"I'll try to keep that in mind."

Jake worked with his father to make Maggie comfortable and then they helped Hawkins cover the girl and Eric and then cover their tracks back to the road. It was too dark to tell whether they'd done a good enough job. But Johnston and Jake Green and Robert Hawkins started their trek again back to Jericho anyway, Hawkins ignoring the wound in his leg and keeping up with the other two men as though he hadn't suffered the injury. Jake figured that was another thing he would need to remind his dad about when they had their talk about Hawkins. Jake shuddered to think about the can of worms he had opened in agreeing to that discussion. One discussion invariably led to another. He knew he still owed his father a talk, though he suspected that neither of these dialogues would happen any time soon. They had far more pressing business to deal with once they got back home.

Like defending their home. Jake marveled at how important that was to him now, when not so long ago being in Jericho had been so unimportant to him, and for so long of a time. Though Jake had hoped never to have to divulge what he'd done during his time away from home, he knew that it was a discussion whose time had come.

The End.


End file.
